TRIPOLI, Libya – Hundreds of deadly landmines and unexploded ordnance still litter parts of Libya after years of fighting, posing a constant danger to civilians, especially children, long after the conflict.
“It’s a disaster zone,” said Saleh Farhat, describing his neighborhood on the southern outskirts of the capital Tripoli, where his son Mohamed was being treated in a hospital intensive care unit after being severely injured in an explosion.
Although relative calm has returned to the oil-rich country since the battle for Tripoli four years ago, the United Nations says more than 400 people, including 26 children, have been injured or killed since 2019 in accidents linked to left-over explosive devices.
Mohamed Farhat, 10, was playing with friends in a garden when the children picked up what they thought was a piece of scrap metal.
“A few seconds later, a strong explosion threw us to the ground,” his friend Hamam Saqer, 12, told AFP from a nearby hospital bed. His feet were badly wounded in the blast and he was covered in bandages.
“We didn’t know it was a weapon,” he added, vowing never to return to that garden again.
His 11-year-old brother Laith Saqer was lying in the next bed, having had a lucky escape suffering just some light scratches.
“We didn’t know,” he said of the explosive. “We went to play, that’s all.”
Libya is still struggling to recover from years of war and chaos after the 2011 overthrow of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi — with clashes periodically between its myriad of rival armed groups.
The country is divided between a UN-recognized government based in Tripoli led by Abdulhamid Dbeibah and a rival administration in the country’s east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The rivals fought a bloody battle for control of Tripoli between April 2019 to June 2020, with Haftar’s forces halted on the capital’s outskirts.
Before retreating though, they laid anti-personnel mines in homes, according to residents and deminers, who say they found the devices in everything from toys to saucepans and toilets. AFP